Lycas was greatly disturbed by this information, and flew into a rage.
"So someone aboard my ship cut off his hair, did he?" he bawled, "and at
dead of night, too! Bring the offenders aft on deck here, and step
lively, so that I can tell whom to punish, from their heads, that the
ship may be freed from the curse!" "I ordered it done," Eumolpus broke
in, "and I didn't order it as an unlucky omen, either, seeing that I had
to be aboard the same vessel: I did it because the scoundrels had long
matted hair, I ordered the filth cleared off the wretches because I did
not wish to even seem to make a prison out of your ship: besides, I did
not want the seared scars of the letters to be hidden in the least, by
the interference of the hair; as they ought to be in plain sight, for
everyone to read, and at full length, too. In addition to their other
misdemeanors, they blew in my money on a street-walker whom they kept in
common; only last night I dragged them away from her, reeking with wine
and perfumes, as they were, and they still stink of the remnants of my
patrimony!" Thereupon, forty stripes were ordered for each of us, that
the tutelary genius of the ship might be propitiated. And they were not
long about it either. Eager to propitiate the tutelary genius with our
wretched blood, the savage sailors rushed upon us with their rope's ends.
For my part, I endured three lashes with Spartan fortitude, but at the
very first blow, Giton set up such a howling that his all too familiar
voice reached the ears of Tryphaena; nor was she the only one who was in
a flutter, for, attracted by this familiar voice, all the maids rushed to
where he was being flogged. Giton had already moderated the ardor of the
sailors by his wonderful beauty, he appealed to his torturers without
uttering a word. "It's Giton! It's Giton!" the maids all screamed in
unison. "Hold your hands, you brutes; help, Madame, it's Giton!"
Tryphaena turned willing ears, she had recognized that voice herself, and
flew to the boy. Lycas, who knew me as well as if he had heard my voice,
now ran up; he glanced at neither face nor hands, but directed his eyes